Online still stinks though, and I'm not sure but it's possibly worse than it was before.

There's one more lagfest... DOA4! What a coincidence!

Netcoding in Bemus is more complicated than you think.

Remember when VF5 was announced on PS3 and they said there will be no online multiplayer? SC4 and Tekken are laging as well and no patch in the world can completely fix this. This have several reasons. Major reasons are the highly frame based gameplay and the speed.

Sure, FPSs like COD4 are also very fast, but you just shoot and a bullet has to kill another player AND, most important, these gamedont care about bullet lag or delay in shots in the first place. People say "the game never lags" but actually its laging all the time.

Maybe you noticed the delay in FPS between your shots and the actual impact on the target? (even on the finest connection). Or the normal delay even in games like Halo 3 (you need 4 bursts with the battle-rifle to kill someone offline, online you need up to 7!!)

Can you imagine having this in a fighting game? ROFL

You play as Jann Lee and press B to hit Ryu with a normal kick but he just rans trough your attack and suddenly after 1 second or so Ryu gets hit by nothing.

That is also just one reason why a BEMU needs a top notched connection/upload. during online play. And that's why so many developers are actually against an online mode for their games in this genre. But the fans cry for that everytime. Most of the time the casuals and of course, somtimes it's fun to fight with your friends online.
And what happens the game comes out, right, it lags online....what a surprise. It's everytime the same with this genre and it will never change. Not in 10 years until there are new ways of making good netcodes for Beat em Ups including perfect hitdetection + low requirements to the players connection (which is impossible with the current technologies).

Safe moves become unsafe, and well balanced charakters can become under/overpowered etc. The actual gameplay changes in completely different ways. In rare cases Beat em Ups can run even faster online than offline.

And sorry, DOA4 runs good online considering how old this game is. It's possible to hold more than 6 or 8 people at the same time in a lobby without having lag or some kind of a "lagfest" . So far I havent seen any other BEMU with these capabilities. At least as long the lobby leader has a very good connection....but yes, that's actually a must have in every other BEMU. Some BEMUS have a limited lobby size or just allow a 1vs.1 with no spectators to save bandwith (and I think that's boring esepcially when you plan to play with friends).

But I dont know why Sigma 2 lags. I think it just uses the DOA4 netcode. Would explain that lag with crappy connections, just like it happens with Beat em Ups.

Another point is that there is A.I. in the missions besides another player. This also needs many bandwith and a good upload. Otherwise the game would end up in a mess online. Player 1 attacks Zedonius and you ask "what are you doing? practicing martial arts?" and right after that you getting hit by some invisible attack lol
And TN is just a small team. They just dont have the time and maybe the experience for making a perfect netcode. They should lay this in the hands of another developer just like SEGA did it with SEGA Rally).

If a game is not completely designed right from the beginning for such a game mode, than it mostly ends up with lag.

Same with ODST, a game from Bungie which is known for the famous Halo games and a good multiplayer experience. Many people complained about lag in Firefight, a cooperative mode where 4 players fight hordes of A.I. enemies.

Netcode is incredibly difficult for most teams to do properly, but there are ways to implement server-side fixes that mask lag and input delay. For a reference point on how to do netcode right in a highly frame-counting intensive game, check out BlazBlue. Nearly perfect online play and it's a fast-paced 2d fighter._________________

I understand programming for fighters/beat em ups must be very difficult, but i am curious now....how come SF4 (when you dont disconnect for no reason) has NO LAG whatsoever? If I pick an opponent with optimal internet speed on the lobby I have 0 lag, game is PERFECT, 99% like the game is offline.

I understand programming for fighters/beat em ups must be very difficult, but i am curious now....how come SF4 (when you dont disconnect for no reason) has NO LAG whatsoever? If I pick an opponent with optimal internet speed on the lobby I have 0 lag, game is PERFECT, 99% like the game is offline.

I wonder what Capcom did.

SFIV most certainly has lag even if you can't notice it, and high level play isn't exactly feasible online for any fighter. The game is just not as frame sensitive as Tekken, SC or VF.. Tekken in particular suffers the most, and even if they fix the currently botched online code, it'll never be close to perfection.

I barely see any lag on SFIV, but it happened a few times. I actually pull some pretty sick combos online and have seen people do some crazy sh!t online too, but I do understand what you are saying though._________________

If a game is not completely designed right from the beginning for such a game mode, than it mostly ends up with lag.

Why are you saying to me something I was talking about from the beginning? I appreciate your effort but I don't need theory on netcodes. I don't do them myself and my knowledge is non-professional, of course, but I know how the practical side of online games looks like. And I can say that DOA4 netcode sucks major ass and most people who play that game agree. The lobby system is pretty neat in theory but just doesn't work because of the lagfest (I'm talking about the screens that are showing lagging matches most of the time). DOA4 works okish very rarely and I remember how pretty much every review stated that online just doesn't work. Here we are with Sigma2 and it's the same crap.

You're defending TN because they are a poor, small team but it's their stupidity that we have all this problems. They've included non-working online co-op to a game that's obviously not designed for any co-op instead of making something with the singleplayer. I swear, they've should have given us a second singleplayer mode with Hayate and flesh out Ryu even more instead of giving us three useless chicks and lagfest online mode.

I can deal with lag as long as my inputs aren't canceled. Inputs not registering are my biggest problem so far. I can literally keep dashing 5 times, yet the game doesn't register it at all and I'm grabbed and dead.

I was hoping the patch would do something about this but instead all we got were costumes...great.

And I can say that DOA4 netcode sucks major ass and most people who play that game agree. The lobby system is pretty neat in theory but just doesn't work because of the lagfest (I'm talking about the screens that are showing lagging matches most of the time). DOA4 works okish very rarely and I remember how pretty much every review stated that online just doesn't work. Here we are with Sigma2 and it's the same crap.

I dont know what kind of connection you have but DOA4 works good online. Sure it lags sometimes but this happens to every BEMU. And it also depends on how good the setup of the players network is (you can play FPS with bad NAT with no problems, for example, but in DOA4 this wont work). Most people dont even know about ports or NAT. Or a guy with just super bad connection is the champion (the guy with the crown. The champion always becomes the host).

I played with people like XDest (Americas best Ayane player). He lives in Canada. I'm from GERMANY! (with my crappy 3000 DSL, lol) and I was in his game during some kind of a "how to become better with Ayane" training session with more than 5 (9 I think) people from different countries. And there was no lag._________________

You guys talking about lag, etc etc...every time I come here, and the only thing I can think is that TN needs to give you the option to remove your partner and give you items.

Just add the option play with no partner and give you a talisman of rebirth and a healing item or something. I am still playing the crap out of the game but I completely gave up on team missions.

I don't want to sound like a jerk or anything but the main reason is because I hate to depend on factors that I cannot influence (other people, internet connection, etc).

I honestly wonder what TN is thinking when they check platinum trophies and see that only what? 10 people have it? at least 5 days ago there was only 10 people that completed the UN missions, and some of them had 8000 partner saves, which is absolutely insane. Does TN think that because those people got it that it is now completely possible? Well guess what, its not.

The guys that did it are good players, but I think that they deserve a real platinum trophy, with the engraving "Go Outside"._________________